


Yule be Sorry (I’m Pine-ing for You)

by NataliaWhite92



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst City, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Christmas fic, F/F, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, Lena knows Kara is supergirl, So does Kara, and isn’t dealing with it well, holiday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28368075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NataliaWhite92/pseuds/NataliaWhite92
Summary: Lena leaves National City after learning the truth about Kara. Her destination? A tropical island retreat of course. Solitude, self reflection, and most importantly space from a certain superhero. Until she shows up unannounced of course.
Relationships: Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor
Comments: 15
Kudos: 126
Collections: Supercorp Content Creators' Guild Secret Santa Exchange 2020





	Yule be Sorry (I’m Pine-ing for You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SpicyCheese](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyCheese/gifts).



> This is a gift for the amazing SpicyCheese. Dude, you’re my best friend and I have absolutely loved writing this for you. Thanks for always supporting me and my attempts. Love you bud 💕
> 
> And a very happy holidays and end of the year to everyone else. We are so close to being done with 2020 y’all. Here’s a little angst for the end of it.

Lena Luthor needs to get away. From National City. From L-Corp. From the unmitigated worship of one superhero who was in fact not just another professional she had a somewhat turbulent past with but also her best friend. 

_Ex_ best friend. 

Lex’s smirking face swims back into the front of her brain, clouding her vision as she sips her fourth scotch of the day. Maybe her fifth. Doesn’t matter, everyone else left the office hours ago but why would she even bother? 

She hasn’t told… her. Hasn’t told her that she knows the true extent of her deceptions. Hasn’t told her that she now counts lies she should have seen through like some people count sheep. Laying alone in her office, on the couch with her shoes kicked across the floor and playing the strip of memories with softly blurred edges. Waiting, just waiting, for that final kick from her last drink to lull her under for a few hours. 

She hasn’t told her but Kara knows something is wrong. 

The text messages that get unanswered. The thinner and thinner excuses of why she can’t share a meal when the bubbly blonde shows up with all her favorites outside her office door. The negging out of game nights. The pretending to not see the confusion, the pain, the questions behind those eyes. 

Those eyes. Those bright blue eyes. Those orbs of worlds and light that she used to stare into whenever she got the chance. The flecks she would count when she could get away with giving Kara her full attention and it wouldn’t be weird to stare so intensely at her best friend’s face. Her mouth. Her scrunched up little nose. 

Lena Luthor needs to get away from it all. 

With a forceful click she books herself a ticket for a week long retreat promising such assanine ideas as inner enlightenment, serenity, becoming one with yourself. 

Usually her worst nightmare. The last two months have proved how wrong she knew even herself.  
_________________________________________

The draping sheets of hot air engulph her as she steps off the landing strip of her private jet. Clothes clinging awkwardly to the skin now covered in sweat pouring from places she wouldn’t have considered worrying about before. The humidity a bog that wraps its tendrils around her limbs as she moves to the car. 

She almost turns around. 

“Giving up already, Ace?” Lex cackles at her. Sitting next to her if not in reality then in memory on the seat she shoves her one permitted bag of luggage defiantly. 

Used to his constant presence she ignores his jab. She’s becoming far too crammed with boxes these days but there’s nothing to do about it now. 

She almost turns around again when she gets to the entrance of the main tent and sees the crass garland strung “prettily” around the front poles. Silver, red, and green. Braided together lavishing every available inch stagnantly in the air that holds not a hint of breeze. 

“So happy to have gotten your confirmation, Ms. Luthor. We have been trying to engage high ranking clientele such as yourself for years now and believe our patented combination of activities both group and individual can greatly improve your well being…” 

The man leading her to her cabin from the check in area trips over himself trying to maintain eye contact and the endless chatter during their short walk. 

“I completely agree, thank you. I’m so glad to have been able to make the trip,” she offers, endeared by his rambling, and practiced at putting someone out of their misery before their circles lapped too many times around each other. 

His smile pulls his entire face tight, reaching the far corners and showing his relief. 

“Sorry, my mum says I didn’t come with an off switch,” he chuckles good naturedly bringing a real smile to Lena’s own face in reflection. 

“What a true gift to have been given.” His blush endears him more to her and she is almost sad to have reached their destination. A wreath on all the doors they pass and sprigs of holly nestled in various places long their walk reminding her once again the holiday season exists far removed from the blistering cold of the city she escaped from. 

It’s basic, a sitting room with wicker furniture comprised of two chairs and some spherical contraception she imagines one could drape themselves over if they were desperate enough. There’s a small bedroom through the doorless frame, with a bed, a bedside table that holds no drawers, and a small wardrobe still bigger than she would need with the stark amount of clothes she was instructed to bring. The bathroom completes the cottage, a surprisingly large bath and rainfall shower separate. 

But people like her able to afford this certain kind of indulgence do not pay for the lodging, they pay for the moment you step out the door attached to the bedroom and straight onto a private beach the very essence of tranquility. 

White sands and crystal clear water. Soft waves rolling in and leaving the sands damp and packed for those running along the shoreline. Further down a group of yoga pants clad adults are arranged in a loose circle and standing tall in Vrikshasana. Pairs and individuals walk about move languidly, not pressed for time, smiles etched deeply into their faces. 

It could be all for show the cynic who had been steadily climbing from the pit she banished it years ago chides. Even so it’s effective and she takes a deep breath, allowing her nasal passages and lungs to be infused with the ocean air, the tickling heat ever present on her skin. 

Maybe this was something she needed to do in fact.  
_________________________________________

The first couple days mash together. 

Too much yoga, her muscles tense and strained until alleviated with the combination of world class masseurs and baths where time is lost and she raises from the now cold water pruned and wondering where the sun went. 

Good food, nothing one would find in the elite restaurants competing for smallest portion prizes and ability to include the most unheard of ingredients. Lena loves every bite because of it. 

But the people are what stick out in her mind as she lays on her cloud soft mattress, thankful the staff running this at least have reasonable understandings of the high expectations of their clientele in some regards. 

Louis, the owner of a family run barbecue joint in west Texas who went viral when his dog started wandering in her old age and visiting lonely souls in the park only to invite them with big eyes and a wagging tail to come back and try some ribs. 

Charlotte, a recently retired grandmother of eleven who built a communications company from nothing after her husband died and she discovered he had gambled all their retirement money away on the ponies. 

And Simon. Simon the bellhop who she had developed an even softer spot for as the days went on. Learning about how he was working down here across the world from his family, trying to make enough money to afford to go to university in London without taking out loans that would sink them. Simon who she never did not see smiling. Simon who pulled her in for a hug the second day when a class in a yurt turned sweat lodge had loosened too many emotions for her and she had made a mad dash back to her cottage. Apologizing profusely afterwards to which Lena had assured him he didn’t need to and hugged him once more. 

They were who she thought about in the moments before she drifted to sleep, only missing her drunken slumber in the in betweens she fought so hard to keep at bay when those faces, those stories slipped and she saw blue eyes and black glasses. 

Louis, Charlotte, Simon. A mantra she focused on until night’s dark pull drew her under.  
__________________________________________

Day three was when it all went to hell. When the one person she had been trying hardest to avoid even thinking about suddenly appeared before her looking the Amazonian goddess she was in a fitted tennis razorback and blue shorts pulled tight in downward dog over a yoga mat splatted with so many colors they added a psychedelic twist to her current mental breakdown. The Santa hat clinging desperately to her head mirroring Lena’s last shred of sanity. 

“Lena! What a surprise! What are you doing here?” Kara called, bounding over with a wave and a quick shout of be right back to the group who smiled and nodded her departure. 

She arrived with such enthusiasm sand covered Lena’s bare toes as Kara skidded to a stop in front of her. Reaching up to adjust her hat back tilting haphazardly to side of her head, fuzzy poof laying on her shoulder. Eyebrow crinkling as more time passed and Lena tried to catch up to this new cruel twist of reality. 

“Lena…” 

“Why? What? Why?” 

“I was sent here on a story from Snapper! Looking into the leisure industry for the new column in CatCo emphasizing mental health!” It’s too bright. The sun. The sand. The fake chipper energy radiating off of Kara that is so obvious if she had bothered to look. The lies. The lies sit on Kara’s face, ticking across in bold print and unnatural. Lena hates herself for never seeing what was so painfully blatant. 

“You can’t be here,” she shoots and ignores the way Kara recoils. The way she freezes, measuring the tone that she has never heard directed at her. 

“Lena…” 

She’s not ready for this. Can’t do this here. She takes a deep breath and pulls the straps tight on her mask that had been gathering dust in the corner of her consciousness. The one she cast off years ago when around Kara. The one she wore for the rest of the world. The one she now donned once again. 

“I’m so sorry, Kara. You just surprised me. I would have never expected you to appear from thin air,” ever syllable infused with fake humor, a forced smile, playing the part perfected so long ago. 

Kara smiles. It’s not right. Not right. Not real. But closer. Almost. She can still see the questions in Kara’s eyes. The words bubbling up behind her lips. The way her mouth purses as she bites her tongue and tries to physically pull them from the awkward situation they are sitting so heavily in. 

“Oh yeah. Same. I mean the beach isn’t exactly what i would have guessed for you. I mean. The sun, the surf. Though they don’t have much surf here. I guess you could surf if you wanted to. They could probably find you a surfboard but I dont see many waves that would be good for it. Maybe if you went to a different island. Golly, the amount you pay for this place you could probably go to any island anywhere.” She tails out, Lena smiling. Always smiling. One would think a quilt would be stifling in this heat but it’s like a balm of words wrapped around her. The past. Right there to be leaned into. 

She sheds it quickly and watches it fall to the ground. Crumpled and discarded. Like their friendship. 

“Lena… you okay? Where did you go?” Kara’s hand is half extended. Looking to reach toward Lena and she can’t conceal the shudder at the idea of Kara actually touching her. Some things even she couldn’t recover from. She pulls herself back to the present moments and to Kara. Her _best friend._

__

__

“Sorry Kara, I seem to have fallen into island time. Wandering thoughts and all. Don’t worry, I am personally keeping the sunblock company in business with the amount of coats I have to apply since being here.” 

Kara laughs. Just as Lena knew she would. The hollow ring is gone and she turns her back to the genuine sound, the relief tinged chortle that works its way into her bones like the humidity surrounding them. 

“Do you want to join our circle? I think it’s a beginners one but it could still be fun. I feel like I haven't seen you in forever.” There’s a whine lacing through the truth of the words. Somewhere deep inside Lena something battles to be let out. She shuts the lid instead. 

“Oh no you go on. I’m going to go get breakfast first,” she says. Turning to go. Unsurprised when the heat from the Kryptonian can be felt next to her as she matches her steps. 

“You know I'd never say no to food. Oh, do you think i should go get my mat? I don’t want it to get misplaced.” 

“Don’t worry, Kara. No one is going to mistake your mat. You both are one of a kind.” 

Kara blushes. Head tilting and smiling looking down slightly to Lena’s level. Ponytail swinging with every step they walk together to the food tent. 

She hates how well she can play this game.  
__________________________________________ 

Kara the barnacle is glued to her side the rest of the week. From the moment they wake up Lena expects her as soon as she opens her door. They go to breakfast together, do classes, workshops, other meals. Activities focusing more and more on the approaching holidays Kara has become the belle of the ball. Pulling stories from everyone, making friends from around the globe, breezing through workouts the rest of the well practiced individuals are gasping at. Each day a new ugly holiday sweater to boot without a drop of sweat ever being shed from those perfect pores. Watching. Always watching. Eyes never leaving Lena for long. That magnetism, that pull. That undeniable proof of being near each other grown stronger in their absence. 

Lena watches it through lidded eyes. Playing a part, losing herself in this act where she hasn’t been devastated. Hasn’t been betrayed. Where they could be any other couple of gals being pals, on a retreat together growing closer and sharing this experience. 

She misses her scotch. 

They are to leave the next day. Go back to the life she ran away from, but not far enough. They have one more class today, a vaguely named and slightly terrifying one called “Release the Valve” that Simon has informed her is about cleansing long dormant emotions as to leave drained but refreshed. 

The sun meets the sea and fills the sky with pinks, purples, and creams. Streaks of colors reaching across the expanse and shadowing the faces of those surrounding her. They are on the beach, sitting on logs pulled together in some sort of formation around a fire pit in the middle that hasn’t been lit yet. They will soon, the moment the sun leaves the sky dropping the temperature around them drastically and usually sending most to their cabins in search of the jacket they swore they wouldn’t use while here. Only the brave few following Kara’s lead and wearing anything resembling festive. 

Not tonight. Tonight they will be kept warm by dancing flames and flickering sparks, escaping and twirling into the air before being snuffed out. 

Kara shares her log, bouncing with energy as always and moving closer and closer to Lena as other people talk. Three times in the last few days have they touched. A brush of fingers when Kara grasped for her attention, a shoulder jostle during dinner last, steadying hands when Lena had gotten lost in memories and forgotten she was in Bakasana. But tonight, with Kara leaning her head on Lena’s shoulder she feels like her skin is gorging with embers. On fire and painful. Too hot. Too much. 

Kara has noticed. Has seen her mask slip a couple times. Has moved to reach for her but seen something that makes her hold back. Lena doesn’t know how she explains it to herself but is grateful for the reprieves. She is trying so hard. So hard to hold on. 

Their sharing circle has been playing games. “Tell me a time you were happy, scared, terrified, shocked…” people sharing as it is so aptly named. Lena participating. Painting colorful tapestry of a life she is inhabiting. Some of it real. Most of it not. 

“Tell me a time you were angry.” 

They are all watching her. Waiting for her. And she opens her mouth to see what will come out, another moment relating back to work as most of her stories have been so far. 

She looks down at the blonde head resting against her, thinking of all the times she would have traded her wealth for this opportunity to be close. And now how such a moment is tainted. Kara feels her eyes, that connection between them ever strong even as it pulls Lena apart. She smiles, encouraging Lena to open up. So Lena does. 

“When my brother told me your secret,” is what comes out. The body laid languidly against her own repelled and taut. Tension radiating through every muscle. Lena wonders if they should go back to “shocked.” This would probably be Kara’s new answer. 

She gets up and walks away. When she hears Kara call after her walking turns to running and then sprinting until she slams into the doorway of her cottage, surprised to be there so soon. She wrenches the door open and sits on the bed to wait. 

Kara appears. Lena doesn’t know if she knocked, can only hear the blood pulsing in her own ears. The haze around the corners of her eyes as they focus laser like on the floor in front of her. 

Kara’s face comes swimming into view, close to her. Her mouth is opening and closing. She’s crying. These thoughts make their way into Lena’s consciousness slowly and she raises her head, feeling her own tears be pulled down by gravity as she steadies herself. 

“Lena, please say something.” Kara begs. The most powerful person in this world begs. Lena hates it. 

“Lex told me.” She doens’t know who is in control of her mouth. She wanted to say something else. But this is what comes out. 

“Told you what?” 

She sees red. 

“Told me who you are, Kara. Or should I say Supergirl?” 

Kara flinches. Leans herself back to rest her butt on the heels of her feet and watches completely stilled. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Lena waits. Waits for what’s to come next. What’s going to be the attempt to explain why she did it. Why she lied. Why she couldn’t trust Lena. Why she treated her like everyone else in her life had always done. Why her. Just why. None comes. 

“I hate you.” 

“I knew you would.” Defeated. Kara is defeated. And this isn’t what Lena expected. She wants the fight. She wants to tear apart flimsy excuses and half baked plans. She’s waited so long. This is not how she imagined it. 

“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you…” her voice raises until she’s yelling. Until she’s crying and yelling and rushes toward Kara. Until she’s closer than she’s allowed herself to be for so long and she’s trying to be angry still. To hold that anger. She’s trying so hard but it’s gone and she’s so hurt. She’s so alone. 

Kara’s arms come around her and pull her closer as she mumbles again and again. But it’s not the same. It’s not the words she’s trying for. 

“I love you” passes her lips again and again. She doesn’t know when it changed. When she stopped lying. But she feels Kara’s arms around her hold her tight. Tighter each time she says the words that are her truest part. And the pain washes through her. Kara is crying and taking her hurt into herself. Wrapping Lena up and rocking them back and forth as they both release. As they both release everything they’ve been holding into each other. 

“I love you,” she says over and over Overlapping with Kara’s, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”  
__________________________________________ 

Lena wakes up hours later, still wrapped up in Kara’s arms, on the floor of the cottage where they showed each other who they really were for the first time. Where they had an honest conversation. Where they had spoken the same language. 

After they had finished crying few words were spoken. They stared at each other. Lena learning the face she thought she had known better than her own but finally seeing it for what it really was. The face of a hero. The face of someone who had lost everything just like her. The face of a reporter trying to make a name for herself outside of her family’s shadow. The face of a friend. The face of something more. She learned it all over again and the tears that fell this time were of joy at finally being given the gift of seeing it without the mask she didn’t know was there before. 

“I’m sorry,” Kara had said again and again. She hadn’t said more. But Lena knew. Lena could hear what she was trying to say back to her. “I love you too,” woven into the syllables of “I’m sorry” but not said out loud. To which Lena was grateful for. 

“I don’t know when I’ll be ready to hear that,” Lena had conceded. Now was not the time. She didn’t know when it would be, if it would be. But something had broken open inside her and she couldn’t ignore the hope that had taken root. 

Just because there was hope didn’t mean the fear had disappeared though. 

Lena wakes up and ten minutes later she’s gone. 

An hour after that she is on a plane going back to her life. An hour later she is watching the beach through the window of that plane and hugging herself pretending she doesn’t see the flash of blue and red in the distance.  
_________________________________________ 

She hears the soft thud of boots landing on her balcony. The shuffle as Kara enters the door she left open knowing it was only a matter of time before she showed up. Before they would see each other again. She had been back in National City for two days, which was one day longer than she had guessed it would take Kara to come looking for her. 

“This doesn’t make it okay, Kara.” 

“Will anything? Is there anything that would ever make this okay?” She can hear the tremble in her voice. If she turned around she knows she would see her best friend, the one person in this world she thought she could trust, picking at her fingers. The corner of her skin hanging from where she has jammed the other and created another hangnail. 

Part of her wonders how when she’s indestructible. 

Most of her wishes she didn’t. 

Some of her reaches for those hands as always. To pull them away from destroying the fingers she loves to play with. From hurting the delicate long digits that she knows now are stronger than every muscle in her entire body combined. From maring the smooth warmth of the skin she has traced endlessly while they watch movies together on the couch. The hands she follows when kara tells stories after stories that are too full to be contained and accompanied by wild gestures. 

She ignores that part the most. 

“I don’t know,” her voice velvet soft and falling in the pin drop silence. Bombs that each cause kara to flinch and pretend she hasn’t, “I just don’t know.” 

Kara caves in upon herself. Arms crossing over her trunk that had not three days ago wrapped around Lena in the same way and Lena feels the villain she was destined to be. Feels the Luthor inside her. Feels the toxins. 

“I hope so,” she offers. 

The light in the blue eyes that hold the secrets of galaxies shines ever bright. Lena loves her for them. For the hope. For the strength to do so. For all the times she has felt stronger when they are together. 

She swirls her scotch until the ice cubes spin circles inside the glass and the watered down liquor sloshes over the side and slides down her knuckles. She watches the lights of her office dance as the drops fall onto her stark white rug. 

The drops would stain if not for the hard work of the cleaning crew she employs. These particular spills something they should be well used to this year. 

Kara clears her throat. A cough and then another. Lena clocks her unintentionally in her peripherals rocking back and forth. Lena pulls her mind back from the beach, the cottage, the knowledge of what it’s like to be swept up like the tide in that very same motion. Kara’s curls shimmering in the moonlight and shifting as her head swivels toward the door. If she let herself she could imagine the thoughts playing out in Kara’s head as clear as her own. 

She takes another drink instead. 

“Merry Christmas, Lena,” Kara mumbles. Face flushing and voice breaking across the second syllable of her name in a way that stabs Lena straight in the heart. 

She takes another drink to pretend it doesn’t. 

Lena doesn’t turn as she hears the door open and the whoosh of Kara taking off. She waits one minute and then another before walking to the simple butcher paper wrapped object on her desk. 

Last year Kara had wrapped her gifts in three layers of paper because she couldn’t decide which Lena would like best. She takes another drink and wishes she could turn off the memories. She sets her glass down because she knows that’s a lie. 

She spent the last two days trying to cram everything back in the boxes. Labeled and clean. Easily put away. But it’s impossible and she wouldn’t want it to happen anyways. Something happened that night. Something that was the beginning of everything. She wasn’t lying, it doesn't make it okay. But it’s a start. And she can’t lie to herself anymore. 

Pulling the simple twine the paper falls away and she picks up the card. Stock white paper with a Holly painted on the front, she recognizes Kara’s strokes even as she uses the pads of her fingers to trace them. 

The note inside is simple as well. Just a few words. Explaining the watch from the DEO that holds a panic button and how it would alert her to Lena’s peril immediately. 

Lena doesn’t doubt if she pressed it right now that Kara would be there before she let her finger up. She sets it back on the desk, the rough strands of the twine rubbing against her thumb and forefinger as she plays with it. 

“You will always be worth waiting for” blurs before her eyes but she doesn’t reach to brush away the tears falling down her face. Not when they mar the card. Not when they land in the remnants of her drink. 

She blindly straps the watch to her wrist. Tightly. She’ll see about designing something less gaudy someday, with Kara’s help. 

“Merry Christmas, Kara,” she says knowing the hero can hear her before getting up and messaging Henry to bring the car around, fingering the watch the whole time. 

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been a minute y’all. I have been taking a break from writing because yeah life happens but excited to get back in with this one. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to come shout at me on tumblr, Nataliawhite92


End file.
